Systematic Coaching

SYSTEMATIC COACHINGAs you well know, one of the distinguishing features ofMeta-Coaching is that it is systematic. It makes adifference. It means that you are not just hoping andguessing that your coaching makes a difference— youknow it does! And you know how it does. You know thisbecause of the systematic approach you have tocoaching. And that means you are not coaching “by theseat of your pants,” “intuitively,” or “just believing that acaring approach and good intentions is enough.”

It is systematic because it operates from a preciseunderstanding of what the “coaching” methodology is.And it is systematic because we use and operate theseven models that governs and guides our thinking,feeling, speaking, and acting. When you know whatCoaching is in contradiction to what Therapy is as wellas Consulting, Training, and Hypnosis, then you knowthe boundaries of your profession. Do you know theboundaries of your profession? How well? Do you knowhow to explain it to people?

Now one problem in the field of Coaching today, and itis a big problem, is that lots of coaches — maybe themajority of them are Grab Bag Coaches. They read alittle of this, a little of that; they do a workshop on EQ,then some from Ken Wilber, then a bit of Meyers-Briggs,TA, and so on. Then depending on how they “feel,” they try to be “intuitive” coaches. What that approach mostlydoes is create a mess in both the coach’s mind and in theclient’s life. It’s no way to be professional!

What you have in the Meta-Coach Training system is afully systematic approach. This means many things. Asystematic approach means that you have a consistenttheory and model of human beings— that you use oneconsistent psychology, Self-Actualization Psychology.You don’t mix a bit of psychoanalysis with it, a bit ofemotive therapy, or a bit of some superficial new agetheory like “The Secret” about “intentionality.” It meansyou understand the basic functioning of human beings inhow they create their reality and how to model it.

This is where NLP and Neuro-Semantics— as powerfulexpressions of Cognitive-Behavioral Psychology—comes in. We operate from several premise that how wecoach, question, and interact. The key premises includethe following:

Every experience has a structure. An experience mayseem confusing and mystifying when first presented,but with persistence, you will discover how it isstructured. It always makes sense. Maybe not fromthe outside, but always from the inside. That’s whywe pace, pace, pace— to understand how it makessense on the inside.

Every experience is structured in the mind-bodysystem with “thoughts” and “feelings.” That’s whywe pay close attention to words, images, sights,sounds, cinematic features of the person’s internalmovies, and how the person uses semantic spacewith his or her body to express the experience.That’s why we listen so intensely, intently, preciselyand calibrate to the person’s state.

Every experience is a mind-body state. Every clientis always in a state, so we coach from our state totheir state. That’s why calibration is so important.What state is my client in? Is it useful, effective,productive, ecological? That’s also why stateinductionis so important. What state does theperson need to be in to get the most out of thecoaching?

Each person is the creator of his or her experienceand state. This puts the responsibility on the clientand makes us, as the coach, the explorer with theclient to find out, “How are you creating thisexperience? What are you seeing, hearing, saying,feeling, etc.?”

Every experience is a skill. No matter what the clientdoes, it is a skill and there’s a structure to it. If theperson never delegates and “can’t” delegate, there’s astructure to it. If the client can be obnoxious andover-controlling as a leader, there’s a structure to it.If you, as the coach, have eyes to see structure andprocess, then everything is a skill. So you canexplore and be curious.

The person is never the problem; the frame andframing is the problem. This is what makes yourattitude as a coach so important. You can speak truthto the client and expose reality without making theclient as a person wrong, just the behavior or theframing. And because the client is response-able, theclient can assume responsibility for the frames.

The emotion of the experience is derivative. Theclient’s emotion is important, but not primarilyimportant, only secondarily. At best it providesinformation, but not an order or command aboutwhat to do. Sometimes we will listen to the emotion,sometimes act on it, sometimes ignore it, sometimesact against it, sometimes put it on hold to get back toit later. Emotions give us our somatic registering ofour meanings. Your meanings show up as yourfeelings. Emotions are the difference between yourmodel of the world (your beliefs, meanings,decisions, understandings) and your experience ofthe world. How it goes— fulfilling your meanings orviolating them creates your positive and negativeemotions respectfully. So as a coach, you useemotions, induce states, but your goal is not tovalidate every emotion or get people to always “betrue” to their emotions. Sometimes you will bechallenging your clients to act against the emotions.

Inside experiences naturally are actualized to theoutside. The mind- body system is designed to turnwhat’s in the mind into muscle memory andneurological responses. So we coach first to the innergame so that clients can win at their outer games.

Behind every experience are layers of thoughts asframes. People don’t merely have a representationalmind— they have a self- reflexive consciousness andso “in the back of the mind,” they all have morethoughts, more emotions, more memories, decisions,and the other 100 meta-levels. That’s why we usemeta-questions to explore the matrix of these frames.

Experiences can be ecological or non-ecological.Just because a client feels something or thinkssomething or remembers something and so on, doesnot mean it is useful or productive. It can be toxic! Itcan make them and others sick. So we coach by“quality controlling” the stuff of experience.

Experiences can and do change. Change is normal,natural, and healthy. We organically change whenwe learn and grow. Development to become more ofwhat we can be is “change.” Change in itself is nothard or scary or painful. In spite of Anthony Grant’sbook on Coaching and his first change, “Change isPainful.” That’s therapy thinking!

Experiential change can be facilitated in generativeways. That’s what coaching is all about. Identifyingdesired changes and facilitating thosetransformations.

Resources for new experiences can be unleashedand enabled. That’s what self- actualization is allabout.

Progress of experiential change can be measured.That’s what benchmarking is all about.

I could go on and on with this list of premises that guide and govern Meta- Coaching. The Neuro- Semantic approach is to use a fiercely focused conversation to get to the leverage points of change and transformation.

So, how systematic are you? How clear are you about“human functioning” in mind-body and how wellinformed and skillful are you in using the systematicapproach?